Thousands cross Venezuela border shopping for scarce food

[Zorro]

Source: AP

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans, some of whom drove through the night in caravans, crossed the border into Colombia on Sunday to hunt for food and medicine that are in short supply at home.

It's the second weekend in a row that Venezuela's socialist government has opened the long-closed border connecting Venezuela to Colombia, and by 6 a.m., a line of would-be shoppers snaked through the entire town of San Antonio del Tachira. Some had traveled in chartered buses from cities 8 hours away.

Venezuela's government closed all crossings a year ago to crack down on smuggling along the 1,378-mile (2,219 kilometer) border. It complained that speculators were causing shortages by buying up subsidized food and gasoline in Venezuela and taking them to Colombia, where they could be sold for far higher prices.

But shortages have continued to mount in Venezuela amid triple-digit inflation, currency controls that have restricted imports and investment and a collapse in the oil prices that fund government spending.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-cross-venezuela-border-shopping-scarce-food-121334987.html

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It's a sad situation when the political authorities continue to adhere to obviously failed economic policies that exacerbate the real suffering experienced by the population.

[Duckhunter935]

1. It's either do that or

Have the public uprise and rebel

[cstanleytech]

2. Well they might want to reconsider because if it continues the odds are there

actually "will" be some sort of uprising by the people against the government which will probably lead to alot of needless deaths that could have perhaps been averted by the government.

[uawchild]

3. What policies do you think are wrong?

And need to be changed? I ask because most articles attribute the bulk of their economic problems to the crash in the price of oil.

Oil production makes about about 50% of their economy, compared to only 9% in Russia, for example .

What policy changes, besides diversifying the economy over the long haul, could improve things?

So what is the current government doing wrong?
What new policy can change things?

[cstanleytech]

4. Oh the oil crash hurt them no doubt the other problem was seizing varies corporations

assets and they need to address that and find some way to entice some outside investments in the country because without that they wont be able to climb out of the rut, not with the price of oil currently.

[COLGATE4]

5. No, their economic troubles are based on the drunken sailor spending

of high oil revenues and little to no investment in any productive sector, including the part that produces the petroleum bonanza. Chavez sunk untold millions into social give-away programs and billions on free or cheap oil to other sympathetic nations in exchange for supporting him in his bid to form new regional organizations (with Chavez at the helm, of course). Couple that with widespread pilfering from the public coffers by the Chavez acolytes and you now have a nation with no money, no investments and not much economic future.

[Red Mountain]

6. Chavez thought he was a player on the world stage...

turns out he was not.

The poor people of Venezuela are paying the price.

[elmac]

7. Sounds like the CIA's hard work is paying off

"The CIA is using the financial collapse to push for an undemocratic overthrow of the Venezuelan government and CIA operatives are providing cash payments to Venezuelan opposition politicians and provocateurs."

wariscrime.com

[Marksman_91]

9. Yeah, sure, whatever you say, pal. n/t

[secondwind]

8. I met a woman in Lima airport in March, going back home to Venezuela.. She was bringing many bars of

soap to her family.. her husband, daughter and grandchildren. She said she works cleaning toilets in a hotel, and the government pays her $4 every two weeks. She seemed very sad. She had saved for the trip to Peru for years, to go visit her sister.....